


Mine and Furrow

by LanaBlade



Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: Fluff and Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-09 01:16:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LanaBlade/pseuds/LanaBlade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's time that Fili and Kili received The Talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Talk

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short fill for a Kink Meme prompt found [here](http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/2235.html?thread=2333627#t2333627) but it grew a mind of it’s own.
> 
> Thorin and Dís have The Talk with teenaged* Fíli and Kíli. Can be as serious or as cracky as you want
> 
> I totally screwed with a few things, and have this set after the Hobbit, but nobody dies. Also, I figure if farmers use farming analogies, miners would use mining ones, only that’s vaguely more horrifying in context.
> 
> Originally posted to lanasmashes.tumblr.com

  
1  
  
  
"No."  
  
"Brother, you promised!"  
  
"No!  That was nearly a hundred years ago, Dis, and I thought you were going to focus on your craft your whole life.  How was I to know there was a dwarf insane enough to marry you, much less that you'd breed?"  
  
"Thorin Oakenshield, you cowardly elf-lover, you stop right this instant!"  Dis threw the plate she was holding with the same unerring accuracy that made her son such a good archer and it shattered to pieces against Thorin's noble (thick) skull as he stopped and spun on her, incensed.  
  
"How dare you... You... "  
  
"I dare because you are an oath breaker." Dis stalked over to him, "You made me a promise, Thorin, and now you are refusing to follow through.  I'd have your beard for this if you had one!"  
  
"Dis!" Thorin most indubitably did not whine, but his sister always made him feel like a child again. "I do not wish to have to explain... those things... to your sons!"  
  
"Thorin, do you remember why you made me that promise?  Do you remember Father trying to explain it to us?  Do you remember how awful it was?"  
  
Thorin winced.  He most definitely did not want to recall the near decade that he had lived in terror of being alone with anyone thanks to Thrain's horrifying lecture on 'the sacred duty of Mahal's chosen to rend their treasures from the flesh and carve a place for their offspring in the body of their beloved.'  
  
"I went to my marriage bed feeling a martyr, Thorin!  I want better than that for my sons."  Dis sniffed and Thorin was alarmed to note a threat of tears at the corner of her eyes.  
  
"Sister, please..." Thorin cursed as a single tear rolled down his sister's cheek, "Damn you, Dis, that's not fair.  Fine, I'll speak to them, but don't expect me to be happy about it."  
  
"Of course not, brother." Dis lowered her eyes demurely, but her lips were twitching, so he thumped her on the forehead before he stormed out of the room, her laughter ringing behind him.  
  
  
2  
  
  
Thorin found the brothers in the room they had claimed as their own, stuffing their faces contentedly with sweet bread and fruit tarts.  
  
“Hello, Uncle!” Kili called with his mouth full, “We’re helping Bilbo and Bombur test recipes.  It’s very serious work.”  
  
Rolling his eyes, Fili tossed another tart at his brother, “Bilbo wanted a second opinion of his Shire recipes before he serves them to everyone else.”  
  
“You should tell him you’re a bad example since the two of you will eat cave mold given half a chance,” Thorin glared at the spread and was very pointedly not jealous of his sister-sons.  
  
Squawking unattractively, Kili made shushing motions at him, “It was just the once!  I was barely fourteen!  Fili!  You promised you wouldn’t tell!”  
  
Fili just mumbled something unintelligible around a mouthful of tart and blinked innocently at his brother.  Kili frowned and made as though to launch himself across the table.  
  
“Your mother sent me to talk to you,” Thorin grabbed Kili by the collar and shoved him back in his chair, “She thinks it is time for you to learn.. The traditions of our people.”  He cleared his throat and hoped he wasn’t blushing as badly as it felt he was.  
  
Kili, looking characteristically confused, (Thorin adored his nephews, but he was aware of their limitations) glanced at Fili, “Is this about the council meeting?  Because even Balin was asleep, and those reports were basically the same as last month’s anyways…”  
  
It was tempting to allow himself to be distracted, but better to just get it over with, really.  Like pulling an arrow out of your leg, or shifting your shoulder back into socket, just deal with the pain and be done.  “No,” he glared, “Although we’ll be discussing that later.”  Kili winced as Fili kicked him under the table.  “Your mother thinks it’s time you learn of… families.”  
  
They both blinked at him blankly, then at each other, “You mean, like the lineages?” Fili ventured after a moment.  
  
Gritting his teeth, Thorin growled, “No, I mean having families… and handling women.”  
  
Both boys continued to stare at him in confusion for several seconds, then Kili seemed to realize what he was referring to and went white as a sheet with horror. “No.  Uncle, please, don’t make us…”  
  
Speaking over him to get his part over with as quickly as possible, Thorin began, “When I was a lad, my father took me aside and explained to me and as I made a promise to your mother,” he ground his teeth, “I will now explain to you.  We are children of Mahal, and we are gifted with talents with stone and fire.  Our women are fierce and stubborn…”  
  
Here Fili seemed to realize what was going on and buried his head in his hands, moaning theatrically around a mouthful of pastry, “Noo… Kili, why is Uncle talking about sex?  I’m going to be scarred for life.”  
  
Thorin glared and cleared his throat, “Our women are fierce and stubborn, and as such it is our job as men to seek the raw jewels in their depths and use our skill with our tools to carve it out and fashion it into a treasure worthy of our partner.”  
  
Thorin paused to take a breath and was less than surprised to see both boys looking a bit green.  “Er… It sounds more violent than it is… Mostly.” He muttered, trying to remember the next bit of the formal speech that his father had given him.  
  
“Good heavens, if that’s how your folk go explaining how to treat a lass, it’s no wonder so many of your women choose to focus on their crafts!”  
  
  
3  
  
  
Thorin would later deny that he squeaked like a mouse, but he definitely did jump and spin in surprise, glaring at Bilbo who was standing in the doorway with another platter of sweets and an unusually sour expression.  “What would you know of it, hobbit?” Fili and Kili made grumping noises at him as they did now every time he forgot to call Bilbo by name.  “This is a private conversation.”  
  
Bilbo seemed amused, “Yes, I recall having a similar private conversation with my father once upon a long time ago, and I remember wishing I was anywhere else at the time.  So did he, I think.  Honestly, though, talk of mining and carving when referring to matters of the flesh is just… Well, you lot are different yes, but I doubt that different.  I’d have sworn myself to celibacy like the monks of Man if my father’d told me I had to carve some poor girl’s flesh.”  
  
Thankful for the beard that hid his violently reddened cheeks, Thorin growled, “Hobbits, and I’m sure especially hobbit lasses are soft and… and squishy…  
  
“Squishy!” Bilbo burst into laughter, “Remind me sometime to tell you of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.  That woman would have even you, Oh King Under the Mountain, running in terror if she heard you call her squishy.” Thorin drew himself to his full height and glared down his nose. “Besides which, stone born or not, your women are made of flesh same as ours.  Besides which, what do you tell your younglings about laying with other boys?  By Eru, I hope you’re not talking about carving and tunneling then, that sounds like it could lead to some painful situations.”  
  
Neither of them noticed Kili, and Fili, who were by now both hiding mostly beneath the table with only their eyes and noses above the edge, just staring with wide eyes at the pair who were nose to… well, chest, really, but Bilbo could seem bigger in personality when he wanted to.  
  
“Why would I tell them about laying with other men?” Thorin frowned, genuinely curious.  
  
“Oh, don’t tell me dwarrow are like Men with their silly prejudice against males laying together!”  Bilbo looked genuinely angry for a moment.  
  
“What? No, of course not!” Thorin didn’t quite sputter, but it was a near thing, “But they have all the same parts.  What is there to tell?”  
  
Bilbo went silent and stared for long moments at Thorin, then slammed the plate of sweets down on the table and threw his hands in the air, “Eru save us all.  I’ve never heard such foolishness before.  Are all the races so ridiculous?  Surely the Elves are more practical at least.  I must write Elrond and make sure.  Honestly, it’s a miracle your kind ever mate at all!”  
  
Fili, and Kili, jumped as the plate hit the table and then stealthily grabbed it and crept toward the door.  
  
Turning a particularly unflattering shade of purple, Thorin roared back, “You will not write to the elves about anything, Hobbit!”  The thought of the look on Thranduil’s face if he happened to hear the details of this conversation… It didn’t bear considering.  
  
Bilbo stepped forward and poked the dwarf king in the chest, “Oh, and how exactly do you propose to stop me?  Someone has to make sure that your heirs get a decent education in things, for their future partners’ sakes if nothing else.”  
  
“Our education is perfectly fine!  This knowledge has been passed down for generations through the line of Durin…”  
  
“Pish posh, the line of Durin.  The best you can come up with is that it’s a tradition of your bloodline?  All that tells me is that you know it for the complete rubbish it is.”  Bilbo rolled his eyes and poked Thorin in the chest again, “What good is years of tradition if you don’t know how to use the gifts the gods have given you?”  
  
Kili, and Fili, froze where they crouched so close to being out of sight around the doorframe that they could taste it.  Kili glanced at his brother. Surely Bilbo hadn’t meant to imply…  Fili, being sensible, gave his brother a shove, “Go, before they remember we’re here!” he hissed.  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter is done and will be up next week. :) Thanks to provocatrixxx for the quick read-through and beta.

  
4  
  
  
“I… You… This…” Thorin drew in a deep breath and stepped forward till he was practically standing on top of the hobbit, who didn’t look even slightly intimidated, “You dare question my manhood!” he roared.  
  
Tilting his head and making sure that the dwarf got a good look at his pointed ear, Bilbo considered, “Yes, yes I rather think I do.”  Carefully concealing the smile twitching about his lips, he mused to himself, “After all, I have no proof of this perfectly adequate education you speak of, and one should not take for granted such important facts.”  
  
This seemed to take the wind out of the king’s ire and he glared down at the top of the curly head.  “And how exactly am I to go about proving myself to you?”  
  
There was a long moment of incredulous silence, and then Bilbo threw up his hands, forcing the taller man to dodge or take a hand to the face, “Honestly.  I’m writing Elrond.  Dwarves!  Thick as the bloody stone.”  
  
“Hobbit!  Do not walk away from me when I am speaking to you!”  Thorin shouted at Bilbo’s retreating back as the hobbit stormed out of the room.  
  
“I’ll walk away from you if it please me, you… you… Dwarf!”  The sharp slam of a door echoed down the hall.  
  
“Oh, that was perfect.  Priceless.  I’ll have to recount that for Dwalin later,” Dis, holding her sides and laughing so hard tears were soaking into her sideburns, stumbled around the corner.  She took one look at her brother’s bewildered expression and collapsed into one of the chairs at the table.  “No, don’t look at me or I’ll never stop.  Oh, Mahal, brother… I can’t take it.”  
  
“Stuff it,” he growled, trying keep from pouting.  “I was trying to do as you asked me and that blasted hobbit came in here and… and impugned my honor!”  
  
Dis just gaped at him for a moment, then slid off her chair, shrieking with laughter, “You… you’re serious.  You genuinely don’t see…”  
  
Thorin glared at his sister for several long minutes, then turned and stormed out in the opposite direction from the hobbit, leaving her to catch her breath on the floor.  
  
  
5  
  
  
Kili stretched languidly and grinned as lips brushed his shoulder, “Do you think we should check on Uncle and Bilbo?”  
  
There was a soft snort, “I think Uncle may have had to prove to Bilbo that he does indeed know what he’s doing with his… tool.”  Fili licked the sweat off his lips and then paused, considering, “Can we not ever speak about that ever again?”  
  
Kili groaned and buried his face in the pillows, “I think I need to scrub my brain now, thanks.”  He was quiet for a long moment, then said tentatively, “Do you think we should tell Uncle not to worry about us knowing what to do with lasses?”  
  
Pulling back so that he could look at his brother, Fili raised an eyebrow, “Did you want to?  We always said with the quest and all that we didn’t want to give him anything else to be, well, Uncle about.”  
  
“We’ll have to tell them eventually… Mum wants me to meet this ‘nice girl from the Iron Hills’.”  He plucked listlessly at the blankets, tension seeping back into him.  
  
Fili was quiet for a long moment, watching his brother, then sighed, “Mum knows, Kili.”  
  
There was a long pause with only the slowly growing tension to mark the passage of time, then Kili squirmed around until they were face to face.  “What do you mean she knows?  She’s been throwing every available girl to pass within a day’s travel of Erebor at me!  She sent Uncle Thorin to give us ‘the talk!’  How does Mum know?”  
  
Fili rolled his eyes, “Who knows why Mum sent Uncle.  You know she lives to torture him.  She was probably annoyed at him for something or other.  Mum’s known since before the quest.  She saw me giving you your birthday present that last year behind the forge.”  He winced when his brother’s eyes went large and horror struck, “Just the kissing part.  Definitely not the other part, Mahal no.”  
  
Sighing in relief the younger brother pinched a convenient piece of skin, “Don’t scare me like that.”  
  
Fili jumped at the pinch and was about to retaliate with some good old fashioned groping when a pounding on the door almost made the both of them fall out of the bed.  
  
“Make yourselves decent, boys, we need to talk.”  
  
  
6  
  
  
“You knew!” Kili pouted at his mother as he plopped into a chair at the table, one of Bilbo’s sweet rolls clutched in each fist.  
  
“Of course I knew, darling, I’m your mother.” Dis smiled at Fili who was carrying the plate with the remaining pastries on it and took one when he offered it.  “Thank you, sweetling.”  
  
“But, Mum, you kept throwing girls at me!  And you sent Uncle Thorin to give us that awful lecture!”  Kili petulantly stuffed one of the pastries in his mouth so that he could grab another.  
  
“Beloved boy, if you expect to keep secrets from your mother, you should also expect to pay for it.  That’s the perk of being the Mum.”  Dis just smiled cheerfully at her sons and tore off a piece of her sweet.  “As for your uncle, that man has a head like granite and if he’s ever going to get his act together and court the hobbit properly, he’s going to need a few pushes.”  
  
Exchanging a glance, the boys shared expressions of resigned disgust, “Once this conversation is over,” Fili muttered, “I’m going to do my best to never ever think about Uncle in relation to courting ever again...  I would have thought after today that they’d… well, be past the courting stage already.”  
  
Dis glared at nothing in particular, “You’d think, wouldn’t you?  Ugh, that hard headed lump of pot metal totally mucked it up.  Only Thorin, honestly.”  
  
Kili scrunched his nose and said around a mouthful of food, “Bilbo should just hit Uncle over the head with a rolling pin and tie him to the bed or something.  Didn’t that work for Grandmum and Grandfather Thrain?”  
  
Dis flinched and stuck her tongue out at her sons, “Thank you, lovely boy, for that horrifying mental picture.”  They both just shrugged cheerfully, at least they weren’t the only ones suffering.  “Although, now that you mention it, my Mum might just have had the right idea when it came to the obliviousness of the line of Durin…”  
  
Fili made an offended face, but Kili grinned, “We can be pretty determined not to see what’s in front of our faces when we want to be.  I think it’s a trait that increases with age.”  
  
“Oi!  I think I’m offended,” Fili glared at his brother, “You didn’t have to hit me over the head with anything.”  
  
“No, I just had to strip naked and wait for you in… your…” he glanced at his mother and turned bright red, “Nevermind.  Hi, Mum.”  
  
She waved a hand and grinned broadly, “As if I haven’t seen you both naked a thousand times.  You didn’t invent sex, you know.  Your father and I…”  
  
“No!” Both of them covered their ears and began singing raucous drinking songs at the top of their lungs.  
  
“Fine, fine.  Be prudes like your Uncle.  Honestly.  We were married, it was all above board.” Dis popped the last of her pastry into her mouth and rolled her eyes in amusement.  
  
Looking slightly green, the princes warily uncovered their ears and glared at their mother.  When no further mental scarring seemed forthcoming, they relaxed against each other and sat in silence for long minutes thinking.  
  
“Maybe we could leave Bilbo on Uncle’s bed for him?  It’d be kind of hard to mistake that one,” Kili ventured after a time.  
  
“You get to explain it to him, Kili, and I’ll just hide behind Mum.”  
  
A frown creasing his darker brow, Kili imagined Bilbo’s probable reaction to being told that they wanted him to wait naked in Thorin’s bed.  He winced and reflexively rubbed his ear where Bilbo usually pinched him.  “Well, do you have any brilliant ideas, then, O’ Heir of Durin?”  
  
Fili punched his brother on the arm, then sighed, “Don’t the tree-shaggers have love magic or something?  We don’t need much, they already have the important stuff, they just need a little push.”  
  
“Yes, that’d be brilliant, and then I’d have to cut your dead bodies down from where my brother has strung you off the parapets.  I’ll be without sons, and he without heirs.”  Dis flicked them both on the forehead with her fingers, “Boys, boys, boys.  I can see now why this is an issue.  The men of Durin are useless.  Leave this to me.”  
  
“Gladly, Mum.  Gladly.”  
  



	3. Chapter 3

  
7  
  
  
Fourteen days after he'd practically thrown himself at Thorin and been either ignored or politely rebuffed, he wasn't sure which, Bilbo was attempting to cheer himself up by digging through the archives.  There was a map of the southern reaches that Ori had told him about in there somewhere.  
  
He was very pointedly not thinking about Thorin.  He really wasn't.  He'd spent weeks fretting and raging and trying to figure out how the hardheaded dwarf could possibly miss his interest.  It had occurred to him while he was avoiding Kili and Fili that perhaps Thorin hadn’t missed his interest.  He had considered it as he hid in the council hall, which was incidentally the best place to avoid them as they both avoided anything even resembling work like the plague.  Perhaps Thorin hadn't missed his interest at all.  Perhaps he was avoiding having to tell Bilbo he wasn't interested.  With all the fuss about the battle and taking back Erebor, Thorin had been walking on eggshells around him for months.  The thought that Thorin might feel beholden to him had horrified the hobbit enough that he had sat himself down and very firmly and sternly gave himself a talking to.  
  
"Bilbo Baggins,” he had said to himself, “you are a good, respectable hobbit, adventure notwithstanding, and you will mind your manners like your mother taught you and stop putting the poor King in awkward situations."  He had nodded determinedly at his reflection in the polished gemstone mirror in his room and smoothed his waistcoat.  
  
And so he found himself, covered in dust and with an armful of maps, passing across the main hall toward his quarters and very pointedly not thinking of Thorin.  At least he was doing a reasonably good job at not thinking of Thorin until the outraged bellow echoed through the mountain.  All of the dwarrow around him continued on with their business, not even pausing, while Bilbo flinched, but tentatively continued on his way.  He’d almost made it to the entrance to the residence hall when the echoes resolved themselves into an actual word.  He really wished they hadn’t.  
  
“HALFLING!”  
  
He was Bilbo Baggins of Bag End, and he had faced down a dragon, fought spiders and goblins, and helped these selfsame dwarrow retrieve their lost kingdom.  If his journey had taught him anything, it had taught him courage, strength, and knowing when to find a nice place to hide.  With that in mind, Bilbo sped his pace and hurried toward his room.  Unfortunately for him, as he rounded the corner, found Thorin, Fili, Kili, Dwalin, Balin, and, strangely, Prince Legolas striding toward him at high speed.  Blast these dwarrow and their mountain and their bloody accoustics anyways.  
  
“Now Uncle, Bilbo did say he was going to write to Lord Elrond...” Fili cast a pleading look at Balin.  
  
“And I forbade it!” Thorin spun on his nephew in his rage and Fili’s eyes widened.  He did not back down, though, and later Bilbo would be proud.  For now, he took advantage of Thorin’s distraction and scurried down the hall toward his door.  
  
“Oh, aye, laddie,” Balin interjected, mouth twitching, but very pointedly not looking Bilbo’s direction, “and that’s always worked a treat with our burglar, it has.  I’m as shocked as you that he's gone and done it anyway.”  The King drew himself up, looking like he was going to rage onward, but instead humphed and gave his advisor a dark glare.  
  
Bilbo breathed a soft sigh of relief as he twisted his doorknob quietly and made to slip away into his room.  He had great plans for the evening that included denying very firmly that he was home to anyone who may ask.  
  
“Master Baggins!”  
  
Bilbo slumped against the doorframe, casting an impolite thought to the heavens with regard to the keen eyes of elves.  “Prince Legolas,” he tried not to sound as defeated and resigned as he felt, “A pleasure to see you again.”  
  
The blonde smiled a cheerful and knowing smile, “And a pleasure to see you.  I had not realized you were still here in the mountain until the letter from Rivendell arrived.”  
  
“HOBBIT!” Thorin strode forward, ignoring the pleasantries, “You... how dare... I forbade you from writing the elves!”  He reached for Bilbo’s shoulders as though he would shake him, but at the last moment crossed his arms and glared.  
  
Bilbo wondered for a moment if perhaps he had indeed carried out his threat to write Elrond in a fit of pique and then forgotten, but no, Balin was looking smugly amused, which means that Thorin was about to make a fool of himself.  “I didn’t.”  
  
That seemed to throw Thorin for a loop, and he looked from Bilbo to the elf prince and back.  “Elf, explain to me again what you are doing in my mountain.”  
  
Kili anf Fili both winced at the disrespect, but Legolas just continued smiling, “My father received a letter from Lord Elrond.  Apparently he had received a request that an elf come to explain to Master Baggins how we show our younglings about lovemaking.”  
  
Thorin spun on Bilbo, pointing accusingly, “You see, you defied me and sent a letter to...”  He paused and then spun back to glare at the elf, “How you show your younglings...”  
  
“Well, of course, there are things in this world that one cannot learn from books, Your Majesty.” Legolas was looking altogether too amused.  
  
Thorin seemed frozen for long moments, breathing heavily and slowly turning a deep aubergine color.  “You... It... How...”  
  
Ignoring the sputtering, the elf prince turned calmly to Bilbo, “If you would like to begin your lessons, I would be happy to assist you whenever you have time to spare.”  
  
“Get out of my mountain,” Thorin drew himself to his full height and bellowed, “Get out!”  
  
Legolas tilted his head in a move quite blatantly learned from his father, “Is there a problem?”  
  
“No one is teaching my hobbit anything about... That... But me.”  He seemed to lose steam as he stumbled over actually saying the word, deflating and glancing back at Bilbo.  “Unless, of course, Mister Baggins would like to learn the elven methods.  Hobbits are quite fond of their learning.” He tried and failed to inject the last with an air of derision.  
  
Bilbo was fairly certain he'd fallen asleep in the library and was having a fantastic dream.  Or perhaps those mushrooms he’d had for elevenses were not as harmless as he’d thought.  There was no way that Thorin Oakenshield had just both stated that he wanted to bed him, and in the same breath insulted him by implying he would bed an elf just out of curiosity.  Actually, he thought slightly hysterically, that sounded exactly like Thorin.  Thorin, who during the long silence had looked very pointedly at the wall, avoiding both Legolas and Bilbo.  Thorin, who had spent his whole life in pursuit of a dream for his people, to the exclusion of normal social rituals like tact.  Thorin, who had begged forgiveness as he lay battered and broken in the healing tent after the battle.  Thorin, who was an enormous idiot with a head as thick as the mountain itself, and Bilbo would have to remember that subtlety was not concept that translated into khuzdul well.  
  
“You know,” Bilbo mused, tapping his lip with one finger, “one night, not terribly long ago as some beings count time,” and he gave Legolas a very pointed glance, getting only a sweetly innocent look in return, “a party of dwarrow invaded my house and ate my pantry clean.  I remember despairing of their manners.”  He glanced at Fili and Kili, “That much hasn’t changed.”  The princes grinned, completely unashamed.  “However, even those dwarrow, as loud and messy and just plain insane to Hobbit sensibilities... Even those dwarrow would not be so presumptious, so confusticatedly uncourteous as to turn away my every effort at courting and then make a complete fool of themselves and me in front of polite company.  And certainly the noble King Under the Mountain would never do something so ridiculous as to then insult me shortly after expressing his interest in the most imperious manner possible.”  Bilbo very pointedly did not look at Thorin, who had curled in on himself more with each word, but turned to Balin, “Certainly the manners and customs of the line of Durin, for all their talk of rending and carving must have something to say on the impossibility of this happening.”  
  
Balin just grinned, “Oh, no, laddie, I'm rather thinking that you’ve hit the nail on the head there.  As far as the Durins go, that sounds par for the course with them and courting.  A tradition of sorts, you might say, making asses of themselves.”  
  
“I will have you banished to the northern reaches!” Thorin growled.  
  
“Oh, aye.  Of course, yer Majesty.  Me’n Dwalin, we’ll just go pack, shall we?”  Balin turned and thumped his brother on the arm, shooing him along as he headed away.  “Don't be too gentle with him, Master Baggins.”  
  
Thorin glared after the brothers as they meandered leisurely down the hallway, doing a poor job of hiding their chuckles.  When he finally turned back to Bilbo, he winced.  The hobbit looked ready to commit murder.  “I... Yrshgl,” he mumbled, clearing his throat.  
  
“Thorin Oakenshield, you, you DWARF!”  All three of the princes jumped slightly as Bilbo’s hand shot out and grabbed Thorin by his beard, yanking him until they were nose to nose.  “If you think for even half a moment that I am going to let you get away with taking back what you said, you are addled!”  Then, to Fili and Kili's eternal horror, he lunged up and smashed his lips to the king's.  Thorin, ever majestic, flailed around like a landed fish for a few seconds, but made exactly no progress in either escaping or encouraging.    
  
When Bilbo finally let him up a bit to breath, he glowered, “You are hopeless, the lot of you.  I can see that I'm going to be doing all the work around here, just like on the quest.”  It was a mark of how off balance the other was that he didn't even slightly protest this comment, staring dazedly at the shorter being’s slightly swollen lips.  His only response was to lean in for another kiss.  
  
Fili, or possibly Kili, gave a traumatized whimper, and Bilbo turned his head to glance at them with a surprisingly wicked grin, “Tell your mother that she’s going to have to take care of things for a day or two.  Your uncle and I have much to discuss.”  Then, still holding very firmly to Thorin’s beard, he dragged the king into his chamber and enthusiastically slammed the door behind them.  
  
Fili and Kili stared at the closed door in mixed triumph and horror, “Well... That’s that then,” the blonde prince muttered, “Now to go drink myself into a stupor and forget all about it.”  
  
Kili nodded agreement, then glanced at Legolas, who was watching them with an inscrutable smile, “I suppose you can come along.  Uncle will be too busy to throw a fit.” He winced and rubbed his forehead at the thought.  
  
Herding his brother down the hall, Fili mused, “I must admit, I'm surprised Bilbo actually wrote to Rivendell.  I thought he was just trying to get Uncle into a snit.”  
  
A hearty, chiming laugh echoed through the hall, and both princes turned to blink at the elf, “Oh, now Prince Fili, at no point did I say that the letter from Rivendell was instigated by Master Baggins.”  
  
Kili seemed to think on this for long moments, “But if Bilbo didn’t write...”  
  
A door down the hall swung open, and Dis sashayed out, looking fond and exasperated, “Heads as hard as rocks, and just as empty, my boys.  It’s a good thing that your Mum loves you.” She turned to the elf prince and gave him a cheeky bow, “Your assistance is much appreciated.”  
  
The elf bowed back and offered her his hand, and the pair of them headed off to find a nice drink, leaving the two stunned princes staring at their backs.  
  



End file.
